U.s. Drug War Is On The Mark In Targeting Users

WASHINGTON — If you read the newspapers or watch the evening news, you could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow over President Bush`s call for a crackdown on drug users.

Isn`t it the drug dealers who constitute the scourge of cities across America? Isn`t it the drug merchants whose turf wars and ``discipline`` have raised the big-city murder rate to record levels? Aren`t the people who use drugs largely victims of the drug dealers: despairing youths, pitiful junkies, the hopeless poor desperate for a little pleasure in their oppressive lives?

Well, what you have seen on television and read in the newspapers is true, but it is by no means the whole truth. The inner cities may be peculiarly devastated by drugs. But the non-poor in the cities and suburbs also play a major role in the devastation.

A minute`s thought tells you why it must be so.

A lot of people-and not just the international traffickers and money-launderers-have grown rich in the drug business. One Washington dealer, Rayful Edmond III, at the time of his arrest was reported to own dozens of luxury cars, a half-dozen real estate properties and a number of businesses. Bonuses to his sales force included everything from Super Bowl trips, exotic vacations and expense-paid outings to prize fights.

Virtually every major city has dozens of inner-city dealers who not only own expensive automobiles and jewelry but who are also able to spread the wealth to those who work for them. Even adolescent children who work as look- outs, to warn the dealers of the presence of law-enforcement officers, earn hundreds of dollars a week.

There`s no way all this money could come from the inner-city ``victims``

you see on the news. The total of the cash in the typical inner city-welfare payments, rent and food money, savings and the rest of it-would not be enough to account for the wealth accumulated by the Rayful Edmonds and the lesser dealers. A substantial share of the drug money that is making so many people rich has to be coming in from the outside. According to some estimates, as many as 80 percent of the drug users in America are not the hard-pressed poor blacks but well-off whites.

It must, in fact, be these outsiders-the middle-class ``casual`` users-who are making the drug traffic sufficiently lucrative to enrich not just the operators of the ghetto drug markets but also the suppliers, shippers and financiers of the drug cartels.

While it is appealing to speak of going after these Mr. Bigs, most of them are so well insulated by power and money that they are all but immune.

The one thing their power and money can`t protect them from is a decision by the consumers-including the affluent ``casual`` users-to stop consuming.

And what better way to encourage that decision than by assessing heavy penalties against the users. The inner-city drug merchants and their minions, for whom the alternative to drug dealing is likely to be either unemployment or some dreary, low-paid job, are not intimidated by the threat of jail. The risk of a few years` imprisonment is, for them, just another cost of doing their lucrative business.

But for the middle-class user, the prospect of even a weekend in jail may be sufficient sanction. Threaten to publicize their names or take away their drivers` licenses and confiscate their fancy cars, and they are likely to quit cold turkey. It`s simply not worth the risk.

Am I saying that America should forget about interdiction, forget about efforts to halt production at the source, forget about the white-collar participants in the narcotics industry?

Not at all. President Bush correctly called for stepped-up action at these levels as well.

But the plain fact is that the most effective way of stamping out the drug business is to take away the customers: by education, by social sanction and by stiff legal penalties. The President may have been a bit disingenuous as to how he intends to finance his $7.8 billion drug war. But in targeting drug users for special attention, he was right on the mark.